Meet Amanda from Marry Mint

I'd like to introduce you all to my new friend Amanda from Marry Mint. Since we started chatting a couple of weeks ago, I've become smitten with her bubbly personality, adorable pregnancy photos, and most importantly, the courage she's demonstrated since being diagnosed with melanoma at age 19. Thank you, Amanda, for sharing your story.

Hey everyone! I’m so thrilled and honored to be here today :)

Goodness, putting my “story” into words is much harder than I thought it would be. I’m FIVE YEARS cancer free and I only recently found the courage to begin sharing my experiences with melanoma. So, I’m sure you can tell from my photo that my skin is quite fair. As a little kid my parents were always careful and kept my skin covered either by clothing or sunblock. Were they perfect about it? Probably not. But they were certainly cautious. Then came those awful teenage years… Am I the only one who wishes I could get a do over? For more reasons than one. Ew. Just ew to being a teen. Anyway, I still wasn’t a sun worshiper but was definitely self-conscious about my pasty white mole covered skin. I knew enough to know that I was someone who was at a higher risk for skin cancer but of course “it won’t happen to me.” Was I a sun worshiper? No. Frequent tanner? No. Did I always make good choices about sun safety? Most definitely not.

The most common question I am asked is: “how did you know?” The answer is, I didn’t. Even my dermatologist didn’t. I had a new “spot” on my shoulder that was just weird. It was new, kind of blue-ish in color and got on my nerves because it was exactly where my seatbelt rested in the car. So new spot= go see your dermatologist, right? So I did.

At my initial visit with him we decided to leave it there and keep an eye on it. It didn’t remotely resemble a melanoma. About a month later I still had an unsettling feeling about it so scheduled an appointment to have it removed. Just a couple of days later my dermatologist called saying it didn’t look good. Pathology showed it could be one of three different things, one of those of course being melanoma. The next step was to have the area excised AND complete the sentinel node biopsy while the pathology was being sent off for multiple opinions. Long story short, I was diagnosed with malignant melanoma with spitzoid deviation stage 3b.

{The ‘spitzoid deviation’ is what made my particular disease complicated. It is a lesion that is most common in very young children and it’s behavior really isn’t known. SO we had to just treat it as aggressively as possible even though it is believed to be less invasive than your garden-variety melanomas.}

My treatment consisted of a modified radical neck dissections followed by the standard year of interferon, one month of induction and eleven months of maintenance. All while having regular scans and check ups with my dermatologist.

On my blog I try and open up about life after cancer. My anxieties, my family, different support systems, lessons, plus million and one photos of my sweet daughter. My hope is to show the world that life can and does go own following something as horrific as cancer. It isn’t perfect and it isn’t always pretty, but it can be damn good! :)

Find me online

My blog, Marry Mint

My cancer chronicles

A belated cancerversary

Last week marked four years since I was diagnosed with melanoma. It seems fitting that on my four-year cancerversary I had a meeting with one of the co-founders of AIM at Melanoma and that later in the evening I had an orientation for my PCORI Pipeline award on patient-driven melanoma research. Somewhere along the way, I've transformed from scared patient to a fierce advocate for cancer prevention.

Earlier this year, during a period of self-reflection, I struggled with the fact that perhaps all my blogging and fundraising and whatnot was taking up too much of my free time. After four years, I thought, maybe it was time for me to stop obsessing over the past and to move on. But I can't. Every time I try to step back and "take a break," someone makes an ignorant comment about skin cancer, or I overhear two teenagers talking about their tan lines on the bus.

I've also recently found new ways to become involved in melanoma research. Not just as a subject in a study, but as a patient who can partner with scientists to develop better strategies for prevention and earlier detection. There's lots to learn, which can be a little intimidating, but I'm excited to see where things lead.

I'll leave you with this fabulous infographic I found on Chelsea's Pinterest today--9 Sneaky Places Skin Cancer Hides. Check it out and help spread the word!

Guest post: Never give up hope

A few weeks ago, I was approached by a fellow health advocate who asked if he could share his experience about being a caregiver to someone with cancer on my blog. I've been very fortunate to have others help spread my story, so I was more than happy to dedicate a post to a different but also very scary disease: mesothelioma. Mesothelioma is a rare cancer that is typically caused by exposure to asbestos. Cam's wife, Heather, was diagnosed with mesothelioma seven years ago. Doctors said she had only 3-12 months to live, but Heather is still alive today. I think it's important to show how cancer (or any disease) impacts not only patients but their caregivers as well. I hope you find inspiration in Cam's story.


Never Give Up Hope
By Cameron Von St. James

On November 21, 2005, my wife, Heather, received a devastating diagnosis: malignant pleural mesothelioma. We had just celebrated the birth of our daughter, Lily, just three months earlier. We thought we’d be happily celebrating her first Christmas together as a family. Instead, our lives became chaotic. I became a caregiver for a cancer patient, and my family started down a long and difficult journey to rid our lives of this disease.

My role as a caregiver started before we even left the doctor’s office. When the doctor gave us the diagnosis of mesothelioma, Heather was so shocked that she could not speak. He gave us the choice of a local university hospital, an excellent regional hospital that didn’t have a mesothelioma program, or Dr. David Sugarbaker, a mesothelioma specialist in Boston. My wife looked at me. Her eyes were pleading, “Oh God, please help me!” I made the decision for her: “Get us to Boston.”

Cancer threw our normal lives into complete chaos. Before the diagnosis, we both worked full time. Heather quickly became unable to work. I was only able to work part time, in order to care for her and Lily. Heather had to concentrate on fighting the cancer. I became the one who made all the doctor appointments, travel arrangements to and from Boston, working, and taking care of our baby full time. I was overwhelmed with all the work, terror that I would lose my wife, and concerns about how we would pay for all the treatments and travel without bankrupting our family.

Being a caregiver for someone diagnosed with cancer is difficult. You’ll experience emotional upheaval, uncertainty, and an unbearable amount of stress. It will likely be the most difficult test you’ll ever face. Unlike other difficult tasks, though, you can’t walk away. Just remember never to give up hope. You’ll need every resource you have to remain sane and navigate through each day.

Heather and I were blessed with help from friends, family, and even complete strangers. They helped us with everything from comforting words to financial assistance. One bit of advice I can offer to caregivers is that if someone offers you help, take them up on the offer. It’s one less thing to worry about. It also lets you know you’re not alone. There are people who care about you and can help lighten your load, don’t be too proud to let them.

It took years for our lives to return to normal. Heather went through surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy to fight mesothelioma. Despite the odds, she’s beaten this awful disease. Seven years after her diagnosis, she remains cancer-free.

The ordeal taught me that perseverance is an advantage and time is precious. Two years after Heather’s mesothelioma diagnosis, I had learned a lot about dealing with stress and juggling time commitments. I decided to fulfill a dream and go back to school to study Information Technology. I continued to work full time and care for my wife and then 2-year-old daughter. I graduated with high honors and was asked to be the commencement speaker. I told the graduating class that five years earlier, I would have never predicted that I would be on that stage giving that speech after all we’d been through with my wife’s cancer diagnosis. I urged them to believe in themselves, realize that they’re all capable of accomplishing far more than they could imagine, and never give up hope. Heather and Lily were in the audience to cheer me on, and that was the greatest reward of all.